Hi,

We're running Windows 10 64 bit on I5-3570 workstations @ 3.40 Ghz, getting these times:

From Clicking on icon to password 12.9 seconds.
(company file is a parameter in the icon)t

From entering password to ready to work 12.7 seconds.

Shutdown 8 seconds.

This is in a company file with 11 years of history, over 20,000 inventory items, 2,000 projects, and 10 active users.

Ways to speed up the program generally:
- Run a 32 bit operating system. In the testing I did, Sage 50 ran twice as fast. Yes, I said twice.
- Have lots of RAM. 4 GB is a minimum on any OS, for 64 bit going to 8 GB or 16 GB won't break the bank, and time is money.
- Load as few other programs as possible. Remove the crapware that came with the workstation.
- Use a decently fast desktop hard drive, or a good SSD.

Set any anti-malware software to not scan every thing, all the time. If it's scrutinizing the company file data at both ends, it's going to be slow. And as for anti-malware, use only one, use a good one.

Keep the number of router / switch hops to a minimum. There should never be more than one switch between the workstation and the server.

If you think the network may be slow, try a local copy of the data. Try a fast external USB 3.0 hard drive. If it's no faster, the workstation hardware and O/S are the bottleneck, not the server / network.

When choosing a workstation CPU, look at the single-threaded performance. More 'cores' can't improve performance when the software can only use one at a time.

If you don't have any choice in hardware, turn off all unnecessary things.   Do NOT, EVER use continuous backup or defragmentation on your Sage 50 data server volume.

Clean out the 'temp' files on the workstation.  While the software is loading, that's where it's putting all that stuff from the server.

Keep all those 'kool' Microsoft gadgets at the end of a ten foot pole - file and folder redirection, roaming profiles, offline files, and all that stuff can really slow things down.

Keep it simple, keep the important data on the server, backup the server.  Help everyone understand that things in 'My Documents' might go missing without warning if the workstation hard drive fails.

Test your systems.  If one of them loads measurably slower or faster than the others, it's the broken / not broken one.

Randy:

Are you saying that a "32 bit Windows OS" is preferred/faster, if so then why are you suggesting more than 4gb of ram which the 32 bit OS can not use!

EXACTLY! And if Sage DOES perform better on a 32-bit OS, one has to ask what 3rd world country they got their programmers from. They keep bugging me saying 2015 is 'obsolete'... who's obsolete NOW????

Your comment make no senses. a 32 bit operating system can only use a max of 3.5 Gig of RAM (possible less depending on OS resources) so to say use a 32 OS with 16 Gig of RAM can't be done, only a 64 bit OS can access more than 4 Gig of RAM

I edited it to be more clear.  At least 4 GB physical memory in any OS. 

Installing more than 4 GB won't benefit a 32 bit OS.  Running 4 GB or less, will slow down a 64 GB OS

SageUser56 said:

And if Sage DOES perform better on a 32-bit OS, one has to ask what 3rd world country they got their programmers from. They keep bugging me saying 2015 is 'obsolete'... who's obsolete NOW????

32 bit isn't necessarily obsolete, and 64 bit isn't necessarily more 'advanced'.  I'm just pointing out what I see in tests - Sage 50 is 32 bit software and runs faster on a 32 bit OS.

Microsoft has made 64 bit Office for years, but still recommends 32 bit.  A 64 bit OS has a few advantages for overall multi-program performance if there is a LOT of RAM. 

Here's a snip from an Intel website:

https://software.intel.com/en-us/articles/moving-from-32-bit-applications-to-64-bit-applications-en/

"...Therefore, any code that works well on 32 bits, contains no 64-bit arithmetic (i.e. in no other ways uses new capabilities of the 64-bit processor) and does not require more than 2 GB of available memory to have only disadvantages when being launched in a 64-bit operating system: a larger size of memory consumed and some operation slow-down..."

Translation:  Accounting software doesn't need 64 bit.

Ginkgo Bike said:

Are you saying that a "32 bit Windows OS" is preferred/faster, if so then why are you suggesting more than 4gb of ram which the 32 bit OS can not use!

I'm recommending at least 4 GB regardless of OS.   And saying that a 32 bit OS generally runs 32 bit software faster than a 64 bit OS.

If 4 GB is all you have, there's likely no advantage to running a 64 bit OS in any situation, and there's likely a disadvantage.   To run 32 bit under 64 bit, the OS has to load a WOW64 layer to run a 32 bit Windows subsystem on top of the full 64 bit OS that's already loaded.  I can't see that being 100% efficient.

And then there's the fun of the things that don't quite always work under 64 bit - like MS Access bunging up stored passwords, and having to specify the 32 bit ODBC administrator, and the additional settings for 32 bit MAPI that aren't always set correctly on installation.  

Yes Sage 50 has been getting slower and slower to start for the last few years. Computer systems aside, during startup, Sage 50 has the "fast open" technology that starts the last file closed prior showing the Start up/login screens. This takes a bit of time but in my testing, it doesn't take as much time as it does to get to the login screen.

Sage 50 also "calls home" each time it is opened. During this time it can be doing any or all of the following, so the speed of startup is also dependent on the internet speed, how fast the Sage servers respond for each and every request, etc.

1) checking for updates, and if there is one and if the settings are set to automatically download it for each computer, then each computer will download the update (roughly between 70 and 350 mb per file)

2) check if license is still part of a valid service plan. If not, then #1 will likely not occur.

3) check and upload payroll information to validate which payroll tier the service plan should be billed

4) upload PEP info if you are still participating

5) downloading any new messages that are part of the Message Centre

6) I am not sure when this happens but when applicable, there is upload/download synchronisation with Sage Drive

7) I am not sure when this happens but when applicable, there is upload/download synchronisation with Sage One

8) I am not sure when this happens but when applicable, there is upload/download synchronisation with Sage View

The last three numbered items above require purchasing these services separately so they may not apply for you. These may not be all the things Sage 50 does on startup but they have not yet been mentioned in this thread, so I thought I would mention it.

Lastly, I don't know if it is actually active at this point (I don't see it as part of the loaded dll's), but back in 2014 Sage added Sage Advisor to the program. I haven't heard anything about it since but my understanding is that Sage will feed you info that will help you work with the program better. I don't know if it trades info with the Sage servers or not, but the program still includes files associated with that feature so it might be loading them on start up even if they are not doing anything.

It would be interesting to find out if the startup is faster in non-business hours or when an internet connection is not available.

Richard S. Ridings said:

Sage 50 has been getting slower and slower to start for the last few years.

Still, with a huge company file and 4 year old hardware, we're getting startup 2-3 times faster than the original poster's 30-45 seconds.   Excepting the actual typing of the password, we wait less than 30 seconds altogether for each workstation startup.

(There could be a longer delay on startup from 'cold', for the first person to log in for the day. )

Our internet isn't awesomely fast - online banking takes 15 -20 seconds to load, then that much again to open account detail, then that much again several tries at 15-20 seconds to sort it in ascending order, and another couple tries to paste into Excel.  

Then when I select another account, it goes back to a login screen that if I log in again will give me a blank white page, so I have to clear the cache, close the browser and re-open it.  I wish that Sage 50 was the worst tool in the toolbox.

Richard S. Ridings said:

Sage 50 also "calls home" each time it is opened.

Sage 50, like most Windows applications, does a LOT of things on startup besides "contacting the mother ship".  If you really want to know exactly what's happening, the (now Microsoft) SysInternals tools like sysmon and regmon can measure exactly how long everything takes.

The point I wanted to make was that, all things being equal, the operating system, hardware, and Anti-Malware configuration can be pain-causing performance bottlenecks.  And they're more or less under end user / system administrator control.